


No Sudden Moves

by Sheselectric



Series: The Killing Moon [3]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Interspecies Sex, Pining, Porn with Feelings, Spectre Garrus, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:27:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29908665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheselectric/pseuds/Sheselectric
Summary: It’s one thing to sleep with her and another to fall for her. He can’t and he won’t because he’s already crossed a line and she’ll be gone as soon as his evaluation comes through.
Relationships: Female Shepard & Garrus Vakarian, Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian, Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Series: The Killing Moon [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1721305
Comments: 18
Kudos: 36





	No Sudden Moves

**Author's Note:**

> This is angsty as fuck for some reason lol
> 
> Can be read as a stand-alone, but you can check out the previous parts for the larger story :)

Garrus works. Or he pretends to at least, his eyes fixated at Shepard—how she fixes her hair mindlessly, brows furrowed as she looks over their shared work.

She’s endearing in a way that he can’t quite explain and he needs to stop—he must stop—because it’s one thing to sleep with her and another to fall for her. He can’t and he won’t because he’s already crossed a line and she’ll be gone as soon as his evaluation comes through. That is how things go. How it all works.

“I’m not sure if I like this,” she says and lifts the gun she’s been tinkering over for a few minutes now and he’s broken out of his reverie as he looks it over.

But instead of really looking—of providing feedback because who’s better at working rifles than him—his mind wanders off again, a pleasant warmth running down his spine as he remembers the console they’re standing by now is when he had her a few weeks back.

And after that, everywhere else he could. The ship’s canteen, long after hours as they finished their meal and then she looked him in that way—the way which stirred something in him, something heavy and needy, and all too familiar at that point.

Then it was his cabin as she came to bring in her reports and stayed well past any acceptable timeframe, leaving quietly a few hours before the day cycle was supposed to begin, telling him that they should probably be more careful about it all.

And several other quiet, private—almost private, dark and forgotten—places in and outside his ship. Always on the brink of risqué but never quite there because she’d never jeopardize her career like this.

It’s in her mind, not rooted in reality, he knows because she’s human and he isn’t, and they have a peculiar way of constraining themselves when there’s no need. Not on his ship and not under any alien command because life gets in the way and people work off stress, and sometimes they fall for each other and...

“Garrus,” she says with her eyebrow lifted and he breaks out again, eyes focusing on her face and then quickly on her rifle.

He clears his throat as he reaches out to hold it.

“Uh, yes, I’m not sure this is your best work, Shepard,” he says with a little bite. Just a little—enough to conceal everything else going through his head.

The corner of her lip rises and he returns the rifle, clearing his throat again, mandibles clicking as he looks to his own gun.

He needs to keep it together. He will keep it together.

~

He’s turned his reports to the Council quite some time ago now.

Garrus might hate bureaucracy, but this time he has to admit, it does come in handy sometimes. Like when you want to buy _more_ time because every second seems to count; because your chances are slowly but surely drifting away and all you can do is reach and grasp, and tell yourself that you’ll come on top.

Then the Council requests a meeting and the realization hits him that even if they gave him a thousand more hours, it wouldn’t change a thing. It’s a churn and he’s sinking to the bottom, and there’s that whirl inside that almost makes him want to drop it all; to jeopardize whatever chances she has because maybe then she’d stay, and she’d serve with him, and they’d never need to part ways. 

The thought is ridiculous and terrible, and he’s almost offended that it went through his head at all because she’d never forgive him and he’d never do that in the first place.

“Vakarian, sir. They’re waiting for you.” An Asari with a pleasant face tells him and he clears his throat before muttering a quiet thank you and walking to the chambers.

Space closes in on him—dark and heavy, and he doesn’t want to be here; heart thumping in his chest as he faces the Council, and then the Alliance command. _He doesn’t want to be here._

“We’ve gathered to consider Commander Shepard for the position of a Spectre,” Tevos starts and he tunes out, his mind somewhere else entirely—anywhere, but here, focused on things a million lights away from what they’re discussing.

Garrus thinks of her and how she smiles, and how she smells, and how she says his name, and his heart thumps harder and harder, his breath getting shorter and lights flickering in front of his eyes. He blinks once and then again, and the voices reach him, chopped, but making perfect sense and he hates that they do.

“...her record is spotless. If there ever was a human to consider...”

“...I’ve known Commander for years and she’s always done her duties diligently...”

“...she single-handedly defended the colony of...”

It’s true. All of it. Shepard’s one of the best damned soldiers he’s ever worked with, idealistic and stubborn as she is. And briefly, again, the thought crosses his mind that it could be used against her—that he could spin it, so they think that...

“Vakarian,” Sparatus addresses him suddenly. “What can you tell us about Commander Shepard?”

And he tells them. And he knows they’ll pick her for the position because that’s what she deserves.

~

Garrus invites her for dinner.

She wouldn’t accept under any other circumstances—he knows because he knows her by now. He understands who she is and how she operates, and what’s a yes, a no, and a maybe in her book, and it’s a knowledge he shouldn’t have or care about, but he does.

Shepard accepts because even though they haven’t talked about it, she knows that the meeting has come through. She feels when things come to an end.

“I heard this is the best place for sushi on the Citadel,” he says as they pull out the menus and she laughs softly.

“Can you even eat sushi?”

He laughs too because he can’t, but he knows that humans like it and he only took her here because of that.

“There are alternatives,” he purrs and she gives him a knowing look before finally settling on what to order.

And then their conversation flows as if they’ve done it a hundred times before. As if it was their thing to come here and talk, and laugh, and drink—and he can feel the pleasant warmth of alcohol settling in his stomach, and he wants to reach out and hold her hand because that’s what feels right, but he doesn’t. He can’t.

They don’t have a thing. Not in the way that he’d want them to have one. He’s always been like this—enamored with one girl or another and unable to do anything about it because a knot in his stomach and a gulp in his throat wouldn’t allow for him to say anything _real_.

To the world he seems heroic and confident—doing as he pleases, rules be damned. Garrus likes that side of himself. He likes how it renders him in the eyes of bystanders; how his C-Sec friends grasp at whatever scrap of information he throws their way and how women turn their heads as he walks by, wishing they’d get a little something if only to share it with their friends later.

But Shepard knows him as he is, close and personal, and she isn’t one or the other girl—she is special to him even if he pretends she isn’t. Even if he tells himself that he hasn’t arrived at that point yet.

“I must say, I quite liked working with you, Shepard,” he offers instead and it doesn’t come out as effortlessly as he’d hoped and she sees that. She understands.

“I like working with you too,” she says. She’s still in the present, as pointless as it is now that everything’s said and done, but he doesn’t correct her because the words make his heart beat faster and he needs to take another sip of liquor to not make a total fool of himself.

They eat in silence, but it’s a comfortable one and he wishes it would last longer, but it doesn’t. It never does.

After paying the bill, they walk through the nicest part of the Bachjret Ward, lights and crowds somehow more welcoming than usual because that’s where you can get lost—unseen and disremembered, and doing whatever it is that people do when that happens.

They don’t now, but he remembers how they used to, and the memory fills him with another kind of warmth, forcing him to fend his thoughts away.

“I think I have some place for the dessert,” she says as they pass the vendor stands and he laughs before clicking his mandibles in agreement.

~

Garrus watches her become a Spectre.

It’s quite an event and he should feel a sense of accomplishment because she’s _his_ protégé, but instead there’s dread—dark and suffocating, and it’s clawing on his insides as her gaze lands on his face. The corner of her lips raises.

The smile’s barely there and if his eyes weren’t fixated on her he wouldn’t catch it; he wouldn’t notice how she communicates with him without as much as a single sound, but that’s not even a possibility he considers because he does notice. He notices every little twitch and expression—has her face memorized in a way that’s almost uncanny, because he can easily recall all the little details, and the thought that he might forget them one day makes him turn his gaze away.

“Garrus,” she addresses him after the ceremony and his name is light coming from her lips, playful even as she looks at him.

He plays along because the way she approaches him relaxes something deep inside, tension dissipating as he offers her a smile.

“So, what now, Shepard?” He asks. “Getting your own ship? A team? Some dangerous mission to resolve peacefully? I can imagine Udina has it all lined up for you already.” He teases and something familiar glimmers in her eyes.

“Don’t start,” she says and he laughs quietly—a genuine, soft laugh that she always manages to elicit from him. “But yes,” she adds after a second, her tone somber now, “it seems I’ve got my own ship now. And a mission.

Garrus knows it, of course. Not because he’s privy to her dealings with the Council, but because that’s how these things go. The feeling is not final in the way that he expected to be, but it’s slowly getting there—numbness encompassing his body and swallowing him down and deep, taking him somewhere cold, and he only manages to not tip over the line by swallowing hard as he looks at her.

“I—I’m sure it’ll go fine,” he says.

There’s a sadness in her eyes, quiet but profound, and she nods her head while taking a step away.

“I need to talk to Admiral Anderson,” she says and he lets her go without another word, the darkness swallowing him whole.

~

It’s her last day on the Normandy to everyone but him. It’s what keeps him sane; what allows him to push through and command, and eat, and work as bland as all of it is, but at least he perseveres. 

The finality resurfaces when he lets his mind slip. When he puts his plate in the sink or his eyes wander over the galaxy map for a little too long, or when someone speaks and it’s stuff he’s already heard—when words turn into meaningless babble and the feeling is there, gentle at first, poking and probing until he has to acknowledge it and then it’s the churn all over again.

It pulls him under and down, down, _down,_ deeper still, suffocating and dreadful, and he feels as if he needs to gasp for air until something within him snaps, and then the feeling is gone. Squished in the back of his mind.

Eat, work, eat, work— _work_. It’s the work that keeps it at bay.

Shepard works too, gentle not to remind him that she’ll be gone tomorrow and everything will be strange and uncomfortable; a lifeless limbo of things that never really ended because they never truly began, and he’ll have no-one to blame but himself. He should be able to say— _do_ —something because if there’s even been the time to do so, it’s now, but he doesn’t. He never does.

When the day cycle comes to an end, he takes up whatever work he can find not to retire to his quarters. Maybe if he mods one more rifle or writes one more report, the time will somehow stop and she won’t leave—won’t just take her things and go. Off to her own ship, and her own crew, and her own missions because they’re equals now in all including the name, and he’s always thought that he’d breath with relief at the idea of her leaving, but he doesn’t. He suffocates. He tries to breathe and he can’t because he was supposed to take her on and spit her out, mold her into a Spectre, but instead, he fell for her.

He fell for her a long time ago. He fell for her before he started to himself that he couldn’t; _wouldn’t_ cross that line. He convinced himself that it was his position that prevented him from going there, but it was yet another lie he was soothing himself with—a lie buried deep down under the layers of overblown confidence that he applied like an honorary badge. He fell for her and it was something he could never take back.

The air around him is thick and hot when he finally takes an elevator up; slightly too hot for his liking and he loosens his collar as he steps out on Deck 1. When the doors to his quarters open and he steps in, it takes a second for his brain to catch on with what he sees. Shepard’s there, standing somehow awkwardly in the middle of the room—sticking out like a sore thumb because she’s never here unless he asks her to be and she never looks as vulnerable as she does now.

“I thought I should say goodbye,” she says and the air around him gets hotter still, the space closing in on him until he blinks once, twice, and then he breaths in.

“It’s fine,” he says and avoids her gaze because he doesn’t know how to go about it all; how to tell her things and come out unscathed. “We really don’t need to do this.” Garrus might sound distant—cold even—but she knows him. She knows him as much as he knows her and they never talk about it, but the feeling’s _there_ , hanging in the air between them and he doesn’t even know why he tries because she knows; she already _knows_.

“Come on,” she says taking a few steps closer to him, slow and gentle. “We do need to do this.” She cradles his face with her warm, soft hands and he gives into the touch, eyes closing because he can’t bring himself to look. He feels a different kind of shame now—not the distance and impersonality ingrained in all turians, but something more universal; more real.

Maybe if they were different people, they’d say those things out loud. It wouldn’t change their lives, not in the grand scheme of things. She’d still go out there and do whatever she was to do and he’d continue with his work, and maybe they wouldn’t even work-out in the end—most probably they wouldn’t, relationships that span the galaxy rarely do—but at least he would have _tried._

Garrus opens his eyes and she looks at him the way she sometimes does, all softness and affection, and he presses his mouth-plates to her lips because that’s the only thing left to do. Because she’s leaving and he might see her years down the line and realize that she looks different; smiles different; smells _different_ because he forgot. He doesn’t want to forget.

He wraps her arms around her and she gives in, melting into his touch as he opens her lips with his tongue, the kiss gentle, and deep, and warm, and all the things he’ll never say. They move into the direction of his bed, a known path; a path that they’ve walked tens of times before but now it’s different—measured and slow because this time it’s final.

Garrus lies her down on the firm mattress and she allows him to undress her without a word, eyes closed and chest heaving, the redness in her skin as haze-inducing as always and he towers over her for a second too long because he wants to remember. And then he allows his hands to travel up her sides, the tips of his talons dragging gently and she shivers as he leans in to kiss her neck, her collarbones, and between her breasts.

Her skin is salty. It’s a human thing, he knows, but to him, it’s a Shepard thing because she’s the only one he’s ever tasted and he needs to be able to recall it—when he lies in this very bed alone and looks at the ceiling, and his mind wanders until it stumbles onto a memory of her, he will know.

He dips his tongue in her belly button and goes lower still; lower until he’s between her legs and her back arches off the bed, a soft whimper leaving her lips as he delves in, and she’s all kinds of salty and sweet; sweet, sweet, _salty_ , sweet and he can’t get enough of how she feels under his tongue. Her hips jerk needily because she needs more—more and harder, deeper, gripping on his fringe, and the words that come out of her lips are somewhere between a whisper and a moan, raspy and rushed, and they echo in his head as he lifts himself from between her legs, and they’ll keep coming back to him long after she’s gone. But she’s still here now and she’s on the edge, panting—needing him—thighs trembling as he removes his suit and lies between her legs, all hot, and heavy, and tense until he sinks into her and his breath hitches at the feeling.

Because it’s this feeling that had him going back against his better judgment—had him lying down but never falling asleep, tossing and turning, and replaying their liaison in his head over and over again until he was hot and hard; painfully hard and needy, and not thinking straight, and wanting her in a million different ways.

Shepard digs her fingers into his hips even before he starts to move and when he does, she trails her hands up and higher still to his neck and then to his face, and she pulls him to her lips. She doesn’t kiss him, not really, because she’s already flushed and shivering, unable to lock him in, but they share the same air and he inhales with a little grunt because this kind of intimacy is hard to come by and he might never experience it again. And if he does it won’t be with her.

It won’t be with her, but it doesn’t matter in this moment of momentary relief; relief from his doubts and regrets as he presses her into the mattress, all desperate and sick with desire. Garrus buries himself in time and again, the warmth of her body familiar and safe, and he won’t forget. He won’t forget how she feels under him, all firm but her skin soft—so soft and delicate that she shouldn’t be able to do what she does—and how she pants and whimpers, and forces herself to keep her eyes open. She looks into his eyes but it falls deep within and then he’s falling, shattering as he finds his release and he holds her as she finds her own.

They lie down after, he with his eyes fixated on the ceiling, and she with her eyes fixated on him. She wants to talk, but he doesn’t want to listen and nod his head and answer with one thing or the other that’ll mean nothing for either one of them because, in the end, there’s nothing they can say to change things that are already in motion. Maybe that’s how acceptance feels. Maybe that’s how he moves on.

“Garrus,” she says finally and he turns his face in her direction. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too,” he answers and it’s genuine in the way that knowing it doesn’t change anything is.

Shepard smiles, a small, gentle smile that he likes to see on her, and opens her mouth to say something, the words seemingly eluding her until she places her hand on his mandible. Her touch is firm and warm, and he leans into it.

“I can’t say how things will work out,” she says, her eyes searching his, “but I know that I want to see you again. This thing we have… it matters to me.” She places a kiss on his mouth-plates, a single, brief kiss that lingers on his skin as she gets up from the bed. “Can I shower here?” She asks and he nods his head.

And then he looks at the ceiling again, something warm brewing inside him, warmer as he goes over her words, again and again, every syllable turning into a stream that lifts him until he’s floating on the top.

**Author's Note:**

> Of course, now I need to continue this lol


End file.
